


The Things You Steal

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Minor Violence, Secret Saps, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7165658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will John Silver's nature finally push Flint's buttons too far?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things You Steal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dee218](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dee218/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [Dee218](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dee218/pseuds/Dee218) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> The inevitable clash happens, but Flint and Silver are still forced to orbit each other - it looks like their relationship is destined to go through all the stages of human emotion, and betrayal only adds to the mix. 
> 
> So, in a way it makes perfect sense that Silver finds himself in Flint's bed only after the pressure between them builds up too strong to handle. The frustrations, anger, the unfairness of it all mixed with missed opportunities turn the hungry kisses they share into blood and ash.
> 
> But surely blood and ash is better than an aching emptiness, another limb missing?

_***_

_Soon you'll be ashes or bones. A mere name at most—and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, trivial._

       - Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_

 ***

“You absolute _fuck_!”

A fist, fingers neatly folded, two thick metal bands of rings that will leave an interesting bruise on John Silver’s face. A fist that connects with his jaw almost as an afterthought, because, after all, you don’t betray your partner _again_ and not even get a good face punching for it. Still, it feels perfunctory, as Silver lies there, a trickle of blood oozing out the corner of his lax mouth, as if also for show.

It’s all for show: all this. And how did they even get here?

***

In the battle between the head and the heart, head needed to reign supreme. Look at what had happened the last time he did not act out of self-preservation: he had lost a limb. But it was worse than that, wasn’t it? He had lost his limb, but he had also lost his freedom. No longer was he free to roam, free to come, and free to go. Definitely was no longer free to come. And that was somehow Flint’s fault too.

Ever since he had woken up in the captain’s cabin, plus a prestigious position, minus a limb, and his fingers had brushed against Flint’s as he handed him the cup full of sincerest reinforcements, and his lies began to peal off of him, shed like a snake sheds its skin, he hadn’t felt like himself. Like someone else had stolen his body. Like his own body was just a costume that he had put on and now this costume he wore was of a man without a leg. There was a part of him that thought Flint had cursed him - _where else did he matter_ \- where indeed? Nowhere now. And not even his cock would obey him if he was no longer master of his own limbs, growing hard for thoughts of Flint, always fucking Flint.

They were going to be partners. They were going to be _equals_. But he couldn’t even trust his own body not to betray him, so why would he not have betrayed the man who owned his body, just like he had come to own Silver’s soul, somehow slowly chipping away at it.

“What did you expect?” Silver laughed, his back up against the wall. Thwarted again. Thwarted by Flint, his own personal demon, who somehow knew him even better than Silver had known himself. “What did you think I had left worth living for?” A smile, cruel in its pearlescent beauty, traversed his face. “Justice in thought? Goodness in action?” The rest of the words came easily to him, for they flowed from memory. “Speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself!”

“You piece of shit,” Flint’s mouth, Flint’s eyes, burning as if Silver had betrayed him again merely by quoting those words. “Did you just quote Marcus Aurelius at me?”

“I read your book, _James_!”

“You absolute _fuck_!”

***

His jaw hurts. His metal peg-leg is cutting angry lines into the wooden beams beneath his body. Flint is standing over him, an irate tiger, ready to pounce, and still Silver can’t stop laughing. It is, if you think about it, utterly absurd how he even got here.

He wanted more from Flint than Flint was willing to offer. He had wanted to tear the veil off from his past, as if by crushing time into his fist he could erase what pain still lingered there. But he cannot say such things to Flint now. Not now that he’s firmly in the “Et tu, Brute” territory again, speaking of long-dead Romans.

And he’s not actually sure which part of it Flint is more furious about: that he had tried to steal his ship, or that he had read Thomas’ book. Probably the book, if he’s being entirely honest with himself.

“I don’t even like the sea,” Silver squeezes through bloodied teeth and Flint sinks to his knees next to him. He looks tired. He looks like Atlas, who has been bearing the world upon his shoulders for too long, even for a Titan such as Flint, a Titan of the soul.

“I would have given it to you,” Flint says, his words a hoarse whisper that barely registers over the sound of blood rushing through Silver’s eardrums as he lies on the floor, helpless to stop grinning.

“What? The ship or the book?”

“Any of it. All of it.”

That’s when Silver knows that he should have just asked. Instead of playing the long game, instead of hating himself the way Flint hated himself, instead of trying to rise like the phoenix from his own ashes, instead of discarding his soul the way Howell had discarded his severed limb. He should have asked!

“ _James_ ,” Flint’s name is a burning agony upon his lips and he stretches his arm out towards the man. “Kiss me or kill me,” he says. Both options have endless appeal at that moment.

And then Flint is on top of him, hands pulling roughly at his tangled, long curls, mouth hard and ravenous, tearing into his lips with such ferocity that their teeth clash. “You asshole!” Flint breathes against his bloodied lips, and then traces their line with the tip of his tongue, till Silver sucks him in again, tasting the salt of the seawater and sweat on those lips. _God_ , he tastes divine, like the rays of the sun upon scorched summer grass, like the first sip of a freshwater spring after being stranded at sea for weeks, like the first kiss, like the last kiss. How can something so dangerous feel so good?

Their hands claw at each other, there will be bruises there by morning, possibly new scars, and John is grateful to be able to touch them now, to press himself up and against James’ chest, where other men have marked him in hatred, he will mark him in _union_ , he will mark him in love.

“Tell me you need me,” he hisses in between Flint’s kisses. “Tell me you want me to stay.”

Flint’s hips hold him pressed down against the floor. He might have splinters on his ass at this rate, but he doesn’t give a shit, because his cock is gloriously hard and trapped right next to the twin hardness underneath Flint’s wide belt. And he might finally be able to come now, just like this, with Flint looking at him like he could devour him, eyes of jade pierced by dilating onyx.

“I have wanted you for a very long time,” Flint sighs and it breaks something inside Silver, lets loose a moan that is more of a roar, a roar of triumph and of claim. He rakes his fingers down Flint’s back and shoves their hips closer together, friction building between them even if they refuse to shed their clothes.

“Tell me you need me _here_ ,” Silver insists.

“You first.”

“Not everything has to be a battle!” Silver snaps.

“Not everything has to be a game!” comes Flint’s retort.

“I love you, you idiot!”

“Shut up, John!”

And he does, finally, shut Silver up. He shuts him up with his mouth, he shuts him up with his hands, he shuts him up with his whole body, until a shared moan, passed back and forth on the wings of a kiss, is all that is left of them.

***

They’re at sea again. Silver should be happy he has his sea legs back. Or should he say sea _leg_? The wind beats against his face, his hair fanning out behind him like an extra sail. The men are asleep below, and James is asleep in their bed, back in the captain’s cabin. It was such a sinful pleasure, stealing that moment of peace from Flint while he slept. He looked so innocent in his sleep, Silver could not help but imagine what it must have been like, back in those halcyon days of Thomas and of knowing exactly right from wrong. A man of conviction, a white knight, not a man in the gray. A man who never wanted to be anyone’s villain.

“I will be the villain for you, so you don’t have to be,” Silver whispers into the wind. “Lay it down upon my shoulders and let _me_ carry your burden.”

Behind him, a shuffling of feet.

“Come to bed, John,” Flint’s voice, still rough from sleep. Silver knows that were he to reach out, he would find him pliant and warm. Flint’s arms wrap around him and draw him into a cocoon of startling safety. “I need you,” he whispers.

And it’s more than John Silver deserves.


End file.
